Alice Loxton

speaker

770 appearances 11 recordings 7 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 3 Sep

Alice Loxton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 11 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 4.

Appearances

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You're Dead to Me · Why do British people love tea? (from Here For The History) · 19 Jun 2026 podcast

And of course, because it's taxed so highly and because there's such a big demand for it, people go outside the system and it creates this market for something that I know you'll love, Ben, smugglers.

You're a pirate at heart, I know.

Clergymen.

You can never trust them.

I've always said it.

So, no, you're right.

Well, it draws to the point that because of these high taxes, there was a huge amount of smuggling.

And to try and stamp down on that, the tax was slashed in 1784.

Wow.

They are indeed.

The Tea Wars.

Now, I'm taking us forward into the 1800s when tea had become so popular that Britain was willing to go to war for it.

At this point, China is still the only country that produces tea.

And of course, the British Empire is at its height.

So it's a time of expansionism, trade, globalism, all happening apace.

And there's this company that's been set up.

It's called the East India Company.

And there are a few of these, but in this instance, we're talking about the British one.

It started out as a merchant company, but over time, it basically became an extension of the British state.

Absolutely, because in order to meet British demand for tea, the East India Company was determined to try and buy some more.

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